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The war on terror is over – the terrorists have won / And why the Bush and Obama administrations are complicit in the terrorists’ victory

The war on terror is over – the terrorists have won

And why the Bush and Obama administrations are complicit in the terrorists’ victory

As 21st century Americans, we have seen the “War on Terror” become a phrase increasingly used to invoke unbridled, unfathomable, unimaginable fear. With the 9/11 attacks, terrorists wanted to not only bring fear to our soil but to make it an endemic characteristic of our culture. This is one critical aspect by which terrorists measure their success – how afraid they make their enemy. Instead of rationally assessing the true damage that could be wreaked on the American people by terrorism (which is far less than common wisdom or the national dialogue would suggest), our government succumbed to this fear-fuelled (indeed, some may even say fear-mongering) mindset.

With the revelations that the NSA has been systematically violating the fourth amendment by spying on every single American without a warrant or probable cause, it is now evident that the ubiquity of fear has pushed our culture to gradually accept the degradation of rights that we have held sacrosanct for over two hundred years and for which countless courageous Americans have shed blood defending. It is breathtaking that the only “oversight” that has been implemented in this egregiously illegal activity is a secret court that rules in secret, based on secret interpretations of the law, detached from any semblance of an adversarial judicial system that is the foundation of our rule of law. Indeed, some of the most recent revelations in this ongoing crisis has shown that, unsurprisingly, this secret oversight has been entirely ineffective and that the NSA has been able to collect internet communications on thousands of Americans without warrant for reasons unrelated to terrorism[1]. The increasing frequency with which fear is used to justify the erosion of human rights is evidence that foreign terrorists have already succeeded in making fear not just a fleeting but rather, at the very least, a semi-permanent aspect of the American culture and political dialogue.

However, this victory would not have been possible were it not for the Bush and Obama Administrations’ willingness to embrace and maintain that fear in order to consolidate unchecked power in the executive branch of the government, which has subsequently been used to subvert Constitutionally delineated rights. This is exactly what the terrorists wanted to happen when they launched their attack in 2001.

Anticipating the immediate disgust that critics will inevitably feel towards the title of this article, I feel compelled to respond up-front that: no, recognition of defeat is not synonymous with its consummation. Rather, attempting to more fully understand the causes behind our loss will help us recalibrate our sense of what it means to be an American in the 21st century, and, hopefully, derive more rational policy that will lead to greater success, security, and protection of human rights for all Americans in the future.

The “War on Terror” as a “War of Ideas”

One of the few enlightening points offered to us by former President George W. Bush was the notion that the War on Terror is a different type of conflict: it is a “War of Ideas.” This conflict has been expressed variously by different commentators, but the crux of it in the West has been represented as “free and democratic systems of government” versus “oppressive religious-fundamentalist institutions.” While there is certainly some truth to this framework, fundamentally this “war” has really been about far baser ideas that instead appeal to a section of the human psyche that is perhaps not even sophisticated enough to understand the subtleties of battling political institutions.

Advances in neuroscience tell us that there are sections of the human brain that are used for rational thinking and others that are responsible for unconscious, instinctual reactions. While I doubt that President Bush gave quite this level of consideration to the meaning of “ideas” that he was referencing in his catchy, pub-friendly phrase, these ideas are, in many ways, much more akin to instincts that the “rational” sections of our mind aren’t fully responsible for processing. The “ideas” in the “War of Ideas,” distilled to an essence, and as represented by the dialogue employed by the US government, has really been a struggle between 1) the sensation of collective fear and 2) the sensation of collective security.

Fear prevents us from assessing risk accurately

A careful distinction must be made here: the “sensation” of fear felt by a large group of individuals does not necessarily mean that that fear is fully rational. Steven Pinker, in his extraordinary study on the history of violence “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” describes terrorism as “a form of asymmetrical warfare . . . which leverages the psychology of fear to create emotional damage that is disproportionate to its damage in lives or property.”[2] He goes on to reference studies in cognitive psychology that have shown that the manner in which humans perceive risk is not determined by unbiased, realistic measurements of the probability that a particular event will occur, but rather by mechanisms in the brain that place undue and inaccurate weight on:

1) Fathomability, or our ability to understand the form in which a potential attack could occur. Anxiety and fear are caused by threats that are unpredictable or novel.

2) Dread, or peoples’ tendency to worry primarily about worst-case scenarios,[3] such as those that are “uncontrollable, catastrophic, involuntary, and inequitable (the people exposed to the risk [i.e., the suicide-terrorists] are not the ones who benefit from it [i.e., the terrorists who didn’t kill themselves])”[4]

Pinker references studies suggesting that these “mental hobgoblins,” as he calls them, represent a “legacy of an ancient brain circuitry that evolved to protect us against natural risks such as predators, poisons, enemies and storms.” In a pre-state world devoid of statistical datasets that can today be used to more accurately assess risks, these seemingly over-developed, irrational fear mechanisms would have served as useful heuristics for allocating caution towards a variety of natural dangers.

However, with the access to information that we have at our fingertips today, these overdeveloped fear mechanisms can backfire and lead us to grossly overestimate the probability of an extremely unlikely event that is either exceptionally novel or that invokes unusual fright. In fact, our natural ability to assess risk is so poor that even small steps taken to avoid what seem to be particularly dreadful attacks can actually increase an individual’s risk of dying. For example, in 2002 approximately 1,500 Americans “died in car accidents because they chose to drive rather than fly to their destinations out of fear of dying in a hijacked or sabotaged plane unaware that the risk of death in a plane flight from Boston to Los Angeles is the same risk of death in a car trip of twelve miles.”[5],[6] Stated slightly differently, more Americans died in 2002 in car accidents while trying to avoid terrorist attacks than there were people in all of the airplanes involved in the 9/11 attacks, due to the much higher probability of death from automobile accident than from terrorist attack.

A terrorist’s mind is especially frightening because it, too, is governed by a form of reason

An objective declaration of victory can only be ascertained when it is understood for what each party is fighting. In the case of the “war on terror,” this requires the uncomfortable mental exercise of putting oneself in the mind of a terrorist in order understand their goals and aspirations. This will help the average American (or any other non-terrorist) understand why terrorists do the horrible things that they do, and why they often do so voluntarily. While it may be easier, both from the perspective of the average person who abhors violence, as well as from the soapbox of a politician who seeks to aggrandize power through fear, to simply demonize terrorists as “evil” and of harboring a “hatred of our freedoms,” this sort of pseudo-propaganda does little to bolster our understanding of why such attacks are planned and executed.

In the Art of War, Sun Tzu said, “To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.” Similarly, to know the terrorist we must take the precarious step into his mind to see why he fights. This shift in perspective will cast light on the fact that many, if not most, of their primary objectives have already been accomplished. Only when we recognize our hitherto blind denial of this defeat will we be able to truly fight back and beat the ideology of terrorism.

Why do terrorists commit terrorism?

So, why do terrorists commit terrorism? To answer this question we must first attempt to understand what terrorism actually accomplishes, separated from the politically motivated, hyperbolic rhetoric that is usually used to describe it.

Terrorism, contrary to (often incorrect) popular knowledge, is not a particularly lethal risk, relatively to the other dangers that Americans face on a daily basis. The average American is far more likely to die from a myriad of daily activities, local violence, or healthcare-related accidents than they ever will be from a terrorist attack. In 2007 more than 40,000 Americans were killed in traffic accidents, 20,000 in falls, 18,000 in homicides, 3,000 by drowning (including 300 in bathtubs), 3,000 in fires, 24,000 from accidental poisoning, 2,500 from complications of surgery, 300 from suffocation in bed, 300 from inhalation of gastric contents, and 17,000 by “other and unspecified nontransport accidents and their sequelae.[7]” Let that sink in for a minute. Approximately 128,000 people died from unfortunate yet common events that most Americans wouldn’t even let enter into their daily consciousness. And yet, even in 2001, the year in which America experienced the deadliest foreign attack on its soil, the average American was nearly 8 times more likely to die from accidental poisoning, and over 13 times as likely to die from hopping in their car and driving to the grocery store as they were from a terrorist attack.

Even when considering terrorist attacks versus domestic violent crime, terrorism represents a fraction of the risk than does simply living in the United States. In 2001 the rate of death by terrorism in the United States was approximately 1.0 person(s) in 100,000[8], whereas the homicide rate in the United States that year was 5.6 persons in 100,000[9]. In other words, in 2001 the average American was 5 and a half times more likely to be murdered just by the nature of living in this country than they were to be killed in a terrorist attack. To emphasize the point, these statistics are from the year in which we encountered the most lethal attack on American soil ever.

By contrast, what if we look at terrorist-related deaths in the average year, namely, one that does not include the most lethal foreign attack on American soil ever? Astonishingly enough, in every year but 1995 and 2001, more Americans were killed by lightning, deer, peanut allergies, bee stings, and “ignition or melting of nightwear” each than by terrorists attacks[10].

Terrorism is a unique form of violence in that there is a significant discrepancy between the amount of fear and the quantity of deaths it causes. Terrorists take unique advantage of our inability to rationally assess risks and use that to further whatever their cause may be. As Pinker points out, “Panic is the whole point of terrorism, as the word itself makes clear . . . they are communicators, seeking publicity and attention, which they manufacture through fear.”[11] Perhaps these individuals would like to wreak as much havoc on our society as possible, but, unfortunately, terrorists are not idiots. They recognize that more highly damaging attacks are increasingly difficult to orchestrate, for the longer a plot exists the higher the probability that it will be discovered and foiled. Even with the data available to us thus far it seems exceedingly unlikely that a terrorist attack would ever be able to exceed the annual amount of deaths caused by, say, accidental poisoning (which is equivalent to eight 9/11’s worth of deaths each year, and how often do you maintain an existential fear of accidental poisoning?). It seems more likely that terrorism, as the ideology’s namesake implies, aims to inflict, through fear, the highest psychological damage possible from whatever deaths or violence that it cancause.

How do we know that terrorists realistically seek high psychological return on deaths inflicted? Well, for one, they brag about it. I’m recreating the following passage from “The Better Angels of Our Nature” in its entirety to give context to the bin Laden quote:

The 9/11 attacks also took on a portentous role in the nation’s consciousness. Large-scale terrorist plots were novel, undetectable, catastrophic (compared to what had come before), and inequitable, and thus maximized both unfathomability and dread. The terrorists’ ability to gain a large psychological payoff for a small investment in damage was lost on the Department of Homeland Security, which outdid itself in stoking fear and dread, beginning with a mission statement that warned, “Today’s terrorists can strike at any place, at any time, and with virtually any weapon.” The payoff was not lost on Osama bin Laden, who gloated that “America is full of fear from its north to its south, from its west to its east,” and that the $500,000 he spent on the 9/11 attacks cost the country more than half a trillion dollars in economic losses in the immediate aftermath [emphasis my own] (346)

Terrorists obviously strive to kill people. But they don’t murder blindly. They pick attacks that 1) will have a high likelihood of success and that 2) will inflict the highest psychological impact possible on the target population.

Aside – a necessary response to an inevitable counterpoint

I have thus far argued that, based on the likelihood of terrorist attacks, and taking into consideration existing historical data, the probability of one attack occurring that comes anywhere near the number of deaths caused annually by car crashes is very low. This invariably invites the “what if” question – or, what if a terrible terrorist attack occurs that does in fact cause a one-time impact on par with the amount of annual automobile deaths (~40,000)? Just because the probability of this event is low does not mean it is zero.

While this is a reasonable objection that could potentially support the unconstitutional activities that the NSA has so far undertaken, it ignores the reality of decreasing marginal utility associated with uncovering the next terrorist attack. Decreasing marginal utility is a fancy way of saying that preventing the first 30% of potential terrorist attacks is much easier than preventing the next 30% of terrorist attacks and each increment becomes increasingly more difficult to prevent. This phenomenon is true in many activities – if you’re fishing for minnows, it’s fairly easy to throw a net out and collect 50% of the fish in a school, but it is exceedingly difficult to get 100% of them. Therefore, while it may be relatively easy to prevent 50% of attacks, preventing the next 40% (90% in total) is more difficult. Preventing the last 0.5% is harder still or, in the real world, likely impossible, and requires an even greater expenditure of energy and, potentially, an abdication by the citizenry of their civil rights.

What we as Americans need to recognize is that trends thus far indicate that the rate of terrorist attacks and the likelihood of dying in a terrorist attack now (based on historical data) is very, very low. What would we be willing to sacrifice to attempt to control for that last 0.5%? Would we be willing to give up what makes us Americans? The Bill of Rights? The rest of the Constitution? What if, even if we did this, we could not eliminate that remaining 0.5% risk? Would we still be willing to give up our right to privacy, to free speech, to protection against cruel and unusual punishments, for the hope of possibly eliminating that final 0.5% risk? To me, after performing the reductio ad absurdum on this counterpoint, it really does appear quite weak.

Ultimately, the logic I have just presented is only even necessary if one assumes that the NSA’s massive dragnet surveillance is effective in preventing those final marginal attacks. So far, we have been told by spy officials that these spy programs prevented 54 terrorist plots, and yet the administration has only spoken specifically about the 2009 plot to bomb the New York City subway which, as has been amply documented, was actually uncovered by ordinary police work[12]. Congressmen Holt has gone as far to write this figure off entirely, saying, “I learned that the heads of the NSA and other intelligence agencies are schooled in secrecy and deception. You can’t always believe everything they say . . . They say these have stopped 50 attacks or something like that, and though I’m not on the intelligence committee right now, and I can’t speak item-by-item, I can be pretty sure that there’s probably not too much truth to it.”[13] Additionally, NSA Deputy Director Inglis has publically admitted that, at most, one terrorist attack has been prevented with the phone meta-data surveillance program.[14] As Americans, are we really willing to set the Constitution aside to protect against, maybe, one terrorist attack in 13 years? Maybe we’ll protect against that one, but after having given the executive branch unchecked power and the right to spy on all of our private activities, we will still not be able to avert all attacks, as is evidenced by the Boston Marathon bombing. The administration seems intent to keep the public focused on the (appearingly weak or unsubstantial) potential of benefit, but to rationally assess these programs we must also be vigilantly mindful of their enormous social costs.

Why seek high psychological impact for a small investment?

With the necessary aside completed, let us return to the terrorist’s mindset. Terrorists aim to cause fear for a number of reasons, one of the most obvious of which is to influence the policy of those who they see as enemies (in this case the United States). Since terrorists are fighting an asymmetric war where they lack the firepower to influence global politics through strategic negotiations, they feel that the only other option at their disposal is to affect change through the infliction of massive and wide-spread fear.

Fear is the terrorist’s primary political currency – without fear they could not drive the global conversation, and they would immediately lose the power to influence their enemies. If you could magically turn off the unconscious portions of our brain that process fear, the terrorists would immediately lose the majority of their power as their actions would instead only be recognized as extremely unlikely events that have a very low probability of hurting anyone, relative to driving your kids to school in the morning.

Delving further into the terrorist’s mind requires the difficult step of understanding that they see us as their mortal enemy. They wish to inflict fear upon their enemy, us, in order to influence our policy in a way that would change our behavior, which could potentially mean less involvement in their countries (or a myriad of other reasons). However, as in most wars, one party seeks the destruction of their enemies through whatever means necessary. In the case of terrorists versus the United States, they cannot and likely will not ever be capable of matching our firepower. But they can use fear to erode the legal and moral infrastructure that supports and gives the United States, their enemy, strength and global political influence.

Without the (likely unknowing) cooperation of our government, terrorists’ aim to invoke a state of complete and ubiquitous fear would not be possible. Through violent attacks terrorists seek to rip apart the fabric of democracy that has held America together and made it the superpower it is today, for this would mean the demise of our country (at least as we have come to know it). Terrorists know that, as history shows us, the first step towards destroying a powerful nation (and therefore its global influence) is by abolishing the rights of that nation’s citizens, and in order to accomplish this they must take advantage of the following:

1) An environment of extreme fear in their enemy’s nation which can then be used by their enemy’s leaders as an excuse to wipe away the rights of that nation’s citizens, and

2) Leaders in their enemy’s country who are willing to act on that fear and actually execute upon the destruction of those rights.

Have the terrorists achieved these two goals? And how are the Bush and Obama administrations complicit in the terrorists’ victory?

Unfortunately, the answer to the first question is an uncontroversial yes. By generating a culture of extreme fear in the wake of 9/11, the terrorists absolutely achieved their first goal. With the passage of the Patriot Act and, more recently, the revelation of massive, unconstitutional spying perpetrated by the NSA and both the Bush and Obama administrations, they have also achieved the second. By forcing Americans to forfeit their constitutionally protected rights, the terrorists have also effectively influenced American policy in a way that would never have been possible if we had instead accurately sized the risk that such terrorist attacks pose.

Were it not for the Bush administration passing the Patriot Act, and the Obama administration severely misusing section 215 of that act to allow and grow the NSA’s capability to conduct blanket, unwarranted surveillance and subsequent shrouding of the process in absolute secrecy via the FISA courts, the destruction of our Constitutional rights and foundational American values would not have been possible. In other words, the terrorists have already won, and were it not for the Bush and Obama administrations they never would have been able to achieve this victory.

Ok, so the terrorists have won. But how bad is it?

Given the data, I am personally far more worried and fearful about an authoritarian superpower without accountability than I am about the exceedingly low chance that I will ever be a victim of a terrorist attack. When I step back and rationally assess the data, I am simply not that afraid of terrorism because I know that the chances of me getting killed or seriously injured in everyday activities is far, far higher. Reason tells us that we should be more worried about driving a car than about terrorism, because we have a far higher chance of being killed by it, and yet we still drive our cars every day with relatively little or no fear. Who among us would be willing to sacrifice our 4th and 1st Amendment rights to decrease the rate of automobile accidents by 7.5% a year, which would represent 3,000 American lives (or the amount of people who lost their lives in the 9/11 attack) saved each year? My guess is most people would respond to that question strongly in the negative.

It’s likely that government officials would respond to this line of rational saying that we need unconstitutional surveillance to keep the risk of terrorism at as low a level as possible. But, as the Global Terrorism Database[15] shows us, that’s simply not true. Rates of terrorism are currently (in 2013) about where they were during the 30 years preceding 9/11, and we did not have unconstitutional spying programs (that I’m aware of) to protect us then – so why do we need them now? The idea that “everything has changed after 9/11,” a line of faulty reasoning often employed by the administration, stands unproven, untested and unsupported by data. Instead, the data does suggest that 9/11 was statistically an extreme outlier, and not the beginning of a new trend[16]. With the data easily at our disposal it becomes increasingly evident that we, the American people, have let the Bush and Obama administrations use the language of fear rather than the process of reason to hijack the conversation in order to change domestic policy and begin to destroy our constitutionally protected rights.

History shows us that when civil liberties begin to erode, and unchecked power becomes consolidated in one branch of the government without transparent oversight, the descent into a darkness marked by the subjugation of citizens without the requirement of suspicion is not far off. Even in recent history we need look no further than the examples of the Argentinean military dictatorship, Pinochet’s rapid ascent in Chile, or the collapse of the Weimar republic, just to name a handful, to see what happens when human rights violations are increasingly tolerated in the public’s consciousness. I’m not saying that the United States is quite that bad yet, but I am saying that it would be naïve for us to think that a similar slide could never occur here. The annals of history are full of accounts of proud peoples whose own destruction could never have been conceived of at the height of their power. We should heed history’s lessons with caution, and react accordingly.

If the terrorist’s have secured their victory, Can we still fight back?

Luckily, the answer to this question is a resounding yes. While the terrorists have secured one of the key victory’s they sought, we can overturn their success by destroying the conditions through which it was achieved.

First, we must lift the dark shroud of terror which has cocooned our collective ability to think rationally for the last 12 years. While I believe that the data more or less achieve this, it is not yet widespread knowledge. The American people must become familiar with and understand the low risk of danger that terrorism truly poses, and for this to happen the data must be disseminated more widely.

Second, we must steadfastly resist the rights violations that Bush and Obama have permitted under the irrational plague of fear that the terrorists effectively catalyzed. A necessary step to this is forcing the legislative branch to wake up from their smug complacency and perform more diligently the duty of accountability that their job requires. Without these two presidents’ complicity and Congress’ almost impressive laziness, the terrorists would never have been able to achieve the massive policy change that marks the culmination of their success.

The only way to truly beat the terrorists and overturn their success is to 1) stop being afraid, which is a rational decision based on the data, which will 2) allow us to force the government to stop destroying our rights in the name of that fear. We must not let people like Osama bin Laden take advantage of the part of our psychology that drives us into an irrational, fevered frenzy that compels us to debase our country’s foundational principles; for it is through this very debasement in which they find their victory, and for which the Bush and Obama administrations are fully and necessarily complicit.

“Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.”– Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers

Aside:

Whenever discussing homicide statistics, a certain level of de-personalization occurs which, while not at all desirable, is somewhat necessary when looking at numbers and figures. Please note that purpose of this article was not to negate terrible loss of life and tragic human suffering that occurred on 9/11, but rather to put it into the context of the terrible loss of life and tragic human suffering that occurs every year in our country from daily activities that are not as often or widely recognized and almost never reported on. If we would not sacrifice our Bill of Rights to reduce the number of annual accidental poisonings by 12.5%, which would represent a 9/11 worth of deaths each year, then why are we willing to do it for 9/11?

[6] Excess deaths from avoiding plane travel: Gigerenzer, 2006. Estimated that 1,500 Americans died in car accidents because they chose to drive rather than fly to their destination out of fear of dying in a hijacked or sabotaged plane.

Comments

I thought Al Queda’s goals were to punish us for supporting a tyrannical Israeli state and for establishing military bases in the muslim holy lands of Saudi Arabia? We’re still doing those things, I think we’ve won.

Your Pinochet analogy is a bit of a slippery slope fallacy. We didn’t fall into dictatorship during slavery, or Japanese internment, or McCarthyism – arguing that metadata gathering is the tipping point is tough to swallow.

And I’m saying all this less to be an apologist and more to be a contrarian.

youreallwronghereswhy

Thanks for being a contrarian!

1) You may be right about Al Qaeda’s goals, but I do refer to this in the article. I mentioned that fear is a primary goal, not a final one, used as political currency to effect global politics in a way that they would not be able to otherwise. Which, if you look at how foreign perspective on the U.S. has been developing with the NSA scandal and the war on syria, has been becoming increasingly deleterious to our position in the world.

My Pinochet analogy is not a slippery slope fallacy. I specifically call out that I do not think that we are anywhere near the level of tyranny experienced under the Pinochet dictatorship; rather, that understanding that prior democratic states have recently seen such declines, and that it would be folly to expect our country to be superior immune in some “intrinsic” way.

We didn’t fall under dictatorships in these periods, but we did see such an incredible erosion in civil liberties that you could argue that there was a form of dictatorship inflicted upon classes of people in our country in these periods (i.e., african-americans, japanese, liberals). This, in my opinion, would be worth contemplating more seriously in order to avoid. Maybe you would argue that these situations somehow aren’t quite as “bad” as Pinochet’s influence on the majority of his country (instead of classes), but even as a “halfway point” between slavery and pinochet (see this analogy isn’t working for me for this reason), I would still think that would be a situation worth avoiding.

What’s particularly frightening about the current situation, however, is the total information access. Even pre civil-war, slaves could escape to Canada. But if another group of people in this country (similar to the WWII) were to be subjugated the way they were less than 100 years ago, today that would mean complete and utter subjugation. There could be no resistance, because the government would be omnipotent of that suppressed group’s whereabouts.

While 5 months ago I would have called myself a conspiracy theory for even acknowledging a situation like this, Snowden’s leaks have shown this to be so, and I now question the level of safety that our increasingly passive, complacent democracy is providing us.

Andrew

I would ask you to consider whether this information collected has ever been used against anyone other than in terrorism proceedings.

youreallwronghereswhy

Of course it has been. Those leaks have already come out – analysts have used these programs illegally (as ruled by the FISA courts) to both spy on people in their personal lives or collect information about Americans that are directly unrelated to terrorism activity. I can hunt around for these links if you’d like, but they are all available through the Guardian, El Globo, or the German magazine whose name I can’t remember right now.

This has already been covered publicly in great detail. The information is, has been, and has been without appropriate public oversight used for reasons other than terrorism. The reason Dilma Rousseff (pres of brazil) went on a tirade against the U.S. today was because these programs were used for economic and corporate-related reasons (i.e., not terror-related espionage, as has been claimed publicly), as reported on in El Globo.

Andrew

Commenting on yourblogsucks on mobile platforms.

Are we talking about Patriot Act spying or are we talking about CIA-typespying.

None of these examples were uses of the data for terrorist activities. In fact, only one terrorist activity has been claimed to have been averted with this information, and, as I mentioned, that’s the 2009 attack on the NYC subway line. And that was amply reported on to have been prevented with ordinary police work.

Andrew

Spying on former spouses, for example, is against NSA’s rules and those
who do so are punished – the information gained isn’t ‘used’ against the
spouse by the government. That is a system of checks and balances,
internally implemented, with nothing to do with FISA courts and an
example of the NSA being a good actor. A terrible example for your
case.

NSA spying on Petrobas, for example, has nothing to do with
FISA courts or “terrorists victory” – nor has there been anything other
than allegations (not supported by Snowden’s documents) that the
information has been “used to gain monopolistic privileges” – it’s the
same type of spying that most modern countries engage in over the years,
unrelated to national security or terrorism or rights given up because
of it (the thesis of your article).

You seem to think that this
stuff wouldn’t happen (people with security clearances looking up exes,
state-sponsored corporate espionage) if we hadn’t “given up our rights”
via the Patriot Act because of 9/11…and you’re wrong. Not saying you
can’t get mad at that too, but it’s not related to the Patriot Act.

youreallwronghereswhy

Well, I’m not at expert, but I think the Supreme court would disagree with you on that. I posted their interpretation of the v. Jones case, and, based on how they are interpreting these activities, they are could be in serious violation of the constitution. The argument that “well, the government is just going to corrupt the foundational principals of our country anyways, so why bother caring?” doesn’t really cut it for me. If you keep allowing the “well they’d do [x] anyways” argument whenever an egregious breach of civil liberty is committed, then you’re providing a slippery slope for a government that doesn’t feel it has a duty to protect your rights anymore. And this is a fairly recent interpretation, using language that very similarly mirrors the NSAs activities, permitted (legally, secretly) through an odious interpretation of the Patriot Act. A fantastic example for my case.

I think we’re talking past eachother. Of course there is a presence
of rules, that’s not the problem. The problem is that the rules are
coming to be interpreted such that certain people don’t need to pay heed
to them anymore. The system of checks and balances has failed to
encourage any other interpretation, as the FISA has become a rubber
stamp process. Since the FISA court has failed, which is the external
check and balance against the NSA, we have no reason to believe that the
NSAs internal system is effective either.

I get that you’re playing contrarian for contrarian’s sake, but some of these contrary arguments are pretty weak. “It’s okay to illegally steal ally countries’ information because, well, fuck it I guess we would probably do it anyways” is neither morally nor logically convincing to me.

Andrew

I just don’t see “do not engage in foreign espionage” as a foundational principle of this country. If they start using intel gathered from FISA-rubber-stamped warrants granted under the Patriot Act to arrest, detain, or harass people for things that have nothing to do with terrorism prevention, then I’ll agree with you that 9/11 has cascaded us into a different world of surveillance far beyond the balance of freedom vs. safety. But until you provide credible examples of that, specifically, happening (Greenwald’s partner was held by Brits under British law – disgusting, but nothing to do with the Patriot Act or surveillance) your valid protests about the larger surveillance state are not going to be effectively tied to your “terrorists have won by fundamentally changing the relationship between the government and its people” argument.

youreallwronghereswhy

Me neither, which is why I never stated that we should not conduct foreign espionage. Also, your argument has changed quite a bit from your initial post, it’s worth noting, as some of your initial premises proven inaccurate.

What IS a foundational principle of this country is to have appropriate checks and balances on systems with huge potential for corruption. As I’ve shown your with ample resources, these checks and balances (internal or external) are ineffective. The reason they’re ineffective is because the government continually uses the justification of national security to excuse unconstitutional action they’ve taken under the guise of defense. They would never have been able to get away with this erosion of protection without terrorists effecting a culture of fear in our country, and the administrations fanning that flame over the last 12 years. Which was the point of the article, and now we’ve come full circle.

Plus, I still don’t buy your argument. “I just don’t see “do not engage in foreign espionage” as a foundational principle of this country. If they start using intel gathered from FISA-rubber-stamped warrants granted under the Patriot Act to arrest, detain, or harass people for things that have nothing to do with terrorism prevention, then I’ll agree with you that 9/11 has cascaded us into a different world of surveillance far beyond the balance of freedom vs. safety.” You’re effectively saying that setting up a system that can override constitutional law and supreme court decisions to systematically violate american’s civil liberties isn’t enough – you need to actually start to see first hand persecution of people before its worth your time and energy to care. This is crazy talk, of course. The whole point of calling out the ubiquity of fear used as justifications for these programs is that now is the time to recognize how easily constitutional law is skirted, before the slip into any sort of daily abuse happens. (However, there are already many examples of this already against journalists in the US, I just can’t dig for the link at this exact moment).

I appreciate your contrarianism, but I really do think your argument is slipping and sliding as you move the goal post with each response I post.

Andrew

My initial argument is that we were attacked in 9/11 because of our support of Israel and for setting up military installations in Saudi Arabia, so it’s hard to consider continuing to do those things a “win” for terrorism. I think you’re totally right to be upset about the surveillance state – it’s just the connection to “terrorist victory” that i take issue with. I think the surveillance state is a weak argument for terrorist victory – I think the invasion of Iraq would be a much better example, taking down a secular government while providing easy pickings of our soldiers for an influx of Al Queda fighters and pushing our country another few trillion into debt is a much bigger win for terrorists than the US government expanding surveillance (while simultaneously not using said surveillance to harass, detain, or arrest non-terrorist Americans).

youreallwronghereswhy

Yeah, that’s a great example. As is arming the rebellion in syria which, by many accounts, is fought most strenuously and sincerely by Al Nusra. This example you give is a good one.

However, I do think you’re missing a nuance in my article, which may be my fault for not being clearer. Let’s say that support of Israel and military installations in Saudi Arabia are the only two reasons we were attacked on 9/11 (which they likely weren’t, but for the sake of the argument). How would a stateless group ever hope to change the global political strategy of the most powerful nation in the world to be in their favor? One way would be to inculcate a type of fear that turns some of the oppressive powers of that nation (that others in the world see but that Americans are generally shielded from) in towards its own citizens. Why would this matter? Because gradual erosion of civil liberties can pretty quickly lead to abuses of power, which if made public could turn significant international opinion against us. This has certainly happened. Has it resulted in us getting out of Saudia Arabia or supporting Israel? No, of course not, but we have lost a fair amount of our political influence over the last 12 years, and the NSA revelations is showing the world that our motives for certain foreign policy needs to be questions much more vigorously.

By your standards, in this case, perhaps terrorists would not have achieved a victory, because you’re defining victory as two specific actions, rather than the aggrandizement of global political influence. I argue above, however, that this later category would be a per-requisite for the former in any situation, and is therefore a key terrorist objective.

I’m not saying that terrorists would have predicted the NSA leaks, that would be silly. But they did seek to influence America’s standing in the world by inflicting fear upon its citizens in a way that would change our interaction with our own government. As I mentioned, fear is their political currency, and for $500,000 they’ve been able to change the historical relationship between Americans and their government within 12 years. That is what bin Laden was gloating about in his quote, and what I refer to in this article as a “victory.” I also call out, specifically, however, that this is only one of their goals, and not a final objective, which would be more similar to the objectives (Israel, Saudi arabia) that you outline.

That’s a different point, entirely. Which I’m happy to respond to. But the nature of this thread has been, when I reply to one of your posts, you, instead of responding to the counterpoints, propose a new tangent entirely. That makes it difficult to stay on point. this is becoming a circle.

1) I believe that I have shown clearly that one of the goals of the 9/11 was to effect global political influence through the inculcation of fear, which would not have been possible without Bush and Obama jumping on the bandwagon. This was in response to your comment about their primary objectives being a) get out of Israel and b) Saudi arabia. I agree that these may be more final goals, but influence through fear is a key intermediary goal to this.

The fact that the U.S. government has used other national security excuses to breach civil liberties in the past is, I believe, only tangentially related to the thesis of this article. This is because I am using the NSA spying as a symptom of a culture of fear as an example of a symptom of the inculcation of fear, rather than espionage per se as a somewhat more justifiable function of national security (as in the cold war, in many cases, when we really did face an existential threat. This is, as I show with the data above, really not a comparable case with terrorism).

Andrew

You suggested that terrorists caused a change in the interaction between US citizens and the US government. I pointed out that the government was spying on it’s citizens well before terrorism was “the fear”, so my argument is that there isn’t a fundamental change – the relationship is the same, “the fear” has changed. I’m not trying to move goalposts here, I’m trying to refute the argument you just made.

youreallwronghereswhy

There HAS been a change. There is a significant distinction between the type of spying that happened before 2001 and the post patriot-act dragnet surveillance. This is a distinction that cannot be encapsulated by calling what’s happening today and what happened during the cold war simply “spying.”